For Everything
by Underthewillows3
Summary: John has gained and lost so much in such a short period of time. He reflects on his life thus far and writes about it in an emotional post. Parentlock/Johnlock.


I can't remember a time where I didn't want to be a father. The thought of holding a little hand in mine and guiding them through life always made me happy. It was one of the things that got me through the war. I couldn't die out in this desert and just end my life there. I had so much yet to accomplish and helping bring a new life into this world was one of them.

But I never thought that I would have to watch one of my children leave me behind.

I had so many nightmares of her final days with us, always wondering what I could've done better. I couldn't believe she just faded away from us. That our beautiful, blonde headed little baby girl just was…gone.

For months after she died, I would find Sherlock with his head thrown back in his chair, snoring away after nights of little sleep, with River tangled in his arms, tear tracks dried on her small cheeks. I would pick her up to put her back to bed and she would always ask me, "When is Indie coming home, Papa?" in a half-asleep voice.

And every time I would have to tell her she wasn't coming home.

I would go back to Sherlock and gently shake him awake. Tears would immediately spring up into his eyes and he would ask me how we could possibly get through this, how could we possibly just go on with our lives without her. We would just sit together and weep for the little girl that we didn't have anymore until we ran out of tears.

It broke my heart, it still breaks my heart to think about those nights. I still can't think about Indie without crying. To think that my daughter, who was so sweet and so good and filled to the brim with a zest for life that I couldn't comprehend, just disappeared from our lives like a feather in the wind.

It's been a year and a half since she left us, the grass on her grave has grown in fully, like she was never buried there. She's always surrounded by flowers, no matter the season. In the winter, it's especially beautiful. She's the only colorful spot on the white, snowy ground. Just as she was for us.

I was sitting with her recently, the leaves on the trees beginning to turn again, it was the second autumn we would have to endure without our little girl. I thought about my feelings about children when I was younger, before I had met Sherlock, before my life really began honestly.

I realized that I had it all wrong. I had not held Indie's hand, I had not guided her through life.

She didn't need me for that.

She had guided me, she had held my hand and helped me through the rough patches and the terrible days. Even when she was dying, she would always tell me and Sherlock it was alright.  
I felt a peace come over me that I hadn't felt since before her diagnosis and I knew that it was her again, letting me know that it would be all alright, just as she did when she was alive.

I will likely never come to terms with her death or stop wondering what I could've done more for my sweet, loving girl. There's still dark shadows under our eyes from the lost sleep and Sherlock's hands still bear pink, silvery scars from the broken glass that had dug into his skin after he had torn up our bedroom after she died. Sherlock will sometimes play that haunting melody and I'll sit and stare at the fire, tears dripping into the brandy in my hand. River still asks for her sister some nights and pretends that she's there to play with her.

Her death is still so difficult to bear for all of us.

But, as the days and months go by, I find myself more and more thankful that she was even ever here at all. That I had gotten to love her and be her Papa for nearly seven wonderful, precious years. That I had captured her lovely smile, her bright eyes, and her silly, sweet personality in hundreds of pictures that I could look at again and again and smile. That she had an equally as lovely sister, who I still had with me and gave me a piece of Indie to hold onto every day.

Thank you, my darling Indigo Rose.  
For everything.


End file.
